Via the Korea Herald: Korea may raise flu alert to highest level. Excerpt:
The Korean government is considering ratcheting up its alert level for Influenza A to the highest level amid growing public concerns that the virus could turn into a pandemic, government officials said Saturday, according to Yonhap News.
On July 21, Korea's health authorities heightened the country's alert level against the flu to its second-highest.
As of Oct. 30, the death toll in Korea from the new flu stood at 35, some two months after the first fatality was reported here in mid-August, with the number of confirmed cases reaching over 100,000, according to the country's health authorities.
However, 99.97 percent of the confirmed cases were completely cured.
"The government is always open to raising our national disease alert status by one notch," a government official at the prime minister's office said, adding it will exercise caution if and when it does so as preemptive actions could have a negative impact on the situation.Evidently WHO's pandemic declaration last June didn't get automatic acceptance in South Korea. I presume the government has its own criteria for a given alert level, and suitable actions for each level.